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In this paper we examine whether there are significant gender differences in the adoption of climate‐smart agricultural (CSA) practices in sub‐Saharan Africa. Using individual‐level data from four sites in Kenya, Uganda and Senegal, our empirical analysis provides robust evidence that men have a higher likelihood of adopting high‐return CSA practices including modern chemical fertiliser, improved high‐yielding varieties and drought/pest tolerant livestock practices. In contrast, women tend to have a higher likelihood of adopting low‐risk and low‐return traditional CSA practices such as water harvesting, crop covering, rangeland management and pest management. Our subsample analysis shows significant heterogeneity in the gender gap across countries. The results of the decomposition of the observed gender gap show that personal values and norms, access to weather and production information and farm characteristics are important factors that explain the gender differential in the likelihood of CSA adoption. Our findings imply that equalising access to key resources such as plots of land, information and decision making power will be crucial to close the gender gap in the adoption of CSA practices. This is particularly important given the differential impacts of climate change between men and women in sub‐Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to understand the role of climate-smart villages (CSVs) in promoting gender empowerment and equality in East Africa. This paper uses data collected from 280 and 305 randomly selected farm household heads in Doyogena (Ethiopia) and Nyando (Kenya), respectively. To analyse the data, the gender empowerment index for climate resilient agriculture (GEI-CRA) and the gender parity index (GPI) were constructed based on guidelines from the literature. In both Doyogena and Nyando, households in CSVs scored higher GEI. Comparing men and women in the CSVs, women were found to be more empowered compared to men and comparing between the two sites, household heads in Doyogena were more empowered than those in Nyando. Regarding gender parity index (GPI), in both sites, majority of the women in the empowered households in CSVs were either at equal status with men or even at higher status than men. These findings shed light on the potential of CSVs in enhancing gender empowerment and promoting gender equality. The positive contribution of CSVs may guide policymakers to scale up these practices with a better-targeted approach that recognize and adequately address the implementation of CSA practices so that men and women can equally benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hay production in arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya is a flagship program under drought risk reduction and climate change adaptation strategies like the Kenya Climate Smart Agricultural Project, the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy, and the Range Management and Pastoralism Strategy. In Kajiado County, the roll-out of the hay production flagship program began in 2018 without precise data on the financial viability of producing hay as a private enterprise. To inform the implementation of the hay flagship project, planners need a cost-benefit analysis of the hay enterprise and the challenges around hay production. The study undertook a literature review, a knowledge, attitude, and practice survey on 354 pastoralists, and a cost-benefit analysis of 23 hay-growing farms in Kajiado Central, Ololiloi and Mashuru sub-counties. The findings showed that proximity to hay farms and availability of hay resulted in livestock keepers increasing the hay fed to their livestock from 23 % to 62 % during the droughts of 2015 and 2017, respectively. However, 35 % of the hay farms having less than 90 acres and 8 % of the hay farms producing less than 4,250 hay bales (15 kgs per bag) were not profitable. Despite only two farms of over 400 acres accounting for 73 % of all hay production, they need more tangible support from the government. Furthermore, farms owning machinery and irrigation facilities were unprofitable, while rain-fed farms hiring machinery were profitable after three years. Other factors affecting profitability were cropping practices, herder-farmer conflicts, hazards like fires, and capital expenditure like building hay stores and purchasing irrigation equipment. Decision-makers need to address the inadequate seasonal hay market worsened by pastoralists' hay-buying behaviour, which was 86 % influenced by animal deaths at the peak of the drought. This paper recommends actionable policy frameworks to establish public-private-producer partnerships, promote stable markets, set up strategic hay reserves, promote low-technology production methods, and train commercial hay producers. In addition, policies should encourage pastoralists to diversify their livestock feeding options during droughts and use hay vouchers for drought response. Furthermore, the policy frameworks should be expanded to provide cash subsidies to hay farmers, address the high costs of machinery and promote drought-based insurance policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) has been promoted in Kenya as a panacea for climate change impacts on agricultural productivity. Consequently, various climate‐smart aquaculture technologies, innovations, and management practices (CSA‐TIMPs) have been developed, validated, and adopted through the Kenya Climate‐Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP). Nevertheless, there has been no evaluation of the climate‐smartness of the CSA‐TIMPs for priority setting. In this study, we evaluated and ranked the CSA‐TIMPs using a modified Climate‐smart Agriculture Prioritization Framework (CSA‐PF). The prioritization process included multistakeholder validation workshops involving researchers, fisheries officers, farmers, traders, and policy makers. The climate‐smartness scores of the CSA‐TIMPs were given based on the CSA pillars (i.e., adaptation, mitigation, and productivity) under various climate‐smartness indicators, with a score ranging from −10 (for a negative impact) to +10 (for a positive impact). This resulted in the identification and documentation of forty (40) CSA‐TIMPs. Climate‐smartness scores varied from 3.8 to 6.1, with higher values indicating strong synergies between the CSA pillars, with productivity having the highest average score of 6.4. The top 5 list of CSA‐TIMPs with the best synergies among the CSA pillars was then developed for prioritization. Adoption of these CSA‐TIMPs would be instrumental in achieving the CSA triple wins, especially in improving aquaculture productivity. Therefore, sustained efforts in stakeholder engagement, capacity building, and policy support are essential to ensure the successful adoption of CSA‐TIMPs in Kenya. A dynamic approach that includes continuous validation, comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, and an enabling environment for adoption will be key to achieving sustainable and scalable impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many initiatives to address contemporary complex challenges require the crossing of sector, domain, and level boundaries, which policy entrepreneurs are believed to facilitate. This study aims to enhance our understanding of how, why, and with what effect such entrepreneurs operate to cross boundaries. As this requires an account of both entrepreneurial strategy and the surrounding policy environment, we embed entrepreneurship in the policy frameworks of multiple streams, advocacy coalitions, and punctuated equilibrium. We use qualitative methods to analyse policy development for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Kenya. CSA is a cross-cutting strategy to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, resilience, and food security while curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. Our results demonstrate that policy entrepreneurs target varying ideas, interests, and institutions across boundaries in order to establish cross-boundary linkages, but this requires additional resources including connections, funding, and time. Simultaneously, this process offers opportunities, for instance, regarding choice of audience and potential resources to tap. Cross-boundary entrepreneurial strategies include venue shopping to soften up communities; framing CSA in multiple ways to address different audiences; demonstrating brokerage between coalitions through impartial leadership and creating a neutral institutional setting; and process manipulation to bypass complexities arising from the scattered policy environment. Although entrepreneurs managed to realize the adoption of a Kenya CSA strategy, the process displays limited changes in policymakers' ideas; the policy remains the main responsibility of the agriculture ministry alone and receives limited support from local authorities. This raises questions regarding the cross-boundary nature and implementability of this strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of spouses' climate risk perceptions (CRPs), defined by their beliefs about unfavourable climatic events and associated damages, on climate change adaptation (CCA) and the observed gender gap in adaptation. Our analysis uses the intra-household data collected by independent interviews with 1,274 female and male spouses in Kenya, Uganda and Senegal. By addressing the CRP endogeneity issue using the exogenous weather shocks during data collection months as instruments, we find that a higher CRP of both female and male spouses increases their probability of adopting CCA strategies. We also find that a higher CRP of female spouses reduces the adaptation gap by increasing their relative adoption of soil and water conservation practices. Our results highlight the importance of understanding gender-differentiated behavioural and economic factors to design effective climate policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize is a globally important cereal crop and a staple in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is predominantly grown by small-scale farmers. Its production, however, is undermined by numerous herbivorous arthropods, and agrochemicals used for controlling such pests are increasingly unaffordable. Farmers therefore require cheaper, effective and environmentally sustainable pest management alternatives. This study explored the hypothesis that boosting habitat heterogeneity through organic farming and intercropping enhances arthropod predator-herbivore feeding linkages that naturally suppress herbivory across non-Bt maize fields. To test this, δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analyses were conducted to establish feeding pathways from maize, legume intercrops, and marginal vegetation, through arthropod herbivores and predators across 15 small-scale maize fields in western Kenya. Farming and cropping systems' roles in trophic linkages were also assessed. Feeding connections and plant food source contributions to arthropod consumer diets were subsequently determined using Bayesian mixing models, and predator relative efficiencies also evaluated. The results showed significantly stronger predator-herbivore trophic linkages within intercropped than monoculture fields, while farming system showed no effect. Herbivores showed stronger connections to crops than to noncrops, suggesting higher vulnerability for crops. For predators, earwigs derived most basal carbon from maize; wasps and predatory beetles, from legumes; ants, from both maize and legumes; and spiders, from both crops and noncrops. Ants and earwigs are important in maize herbivore regulation, particularly for intercropping; wasps and predatory beetles for regulating legume herbivores; and spiders for whole-field herbivore regulation. Most studies have focused on single species at single-trophic levels, but here we demonstrate, for the first time in sub-Saharan Africa, application of stable isotope analyses to characterize multitrophic feeding interactions that indicate effective agronomic practices for fostering top-down arthropod herbivore suppression in non-Bt maize fields. The results are useful in prescribing field practices with low-impact habitat management for sustainable small-scale agriculture rather than pesticide-based arthropod herbivore control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]